MANILA – Iloilo City will shift to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Alert Level 3 from Jan. 9 to 15, acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles announced last night.
The alert level shift was approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) based on the recommendation of its Sub-Technical Working Group on Data Analytics.
The announcement of the escalation alert level came a day after Iloilo City recorded its first case of the more contagious Omicron COVID-19 variant – a 46-year-old seafarer from Kenya.
Under Alert Level 3, establishments will be allowed to operate at 30 percent indoor venue capacity only for fully vaccinated individuals, and 50 percent outdoor venue capacity provided that all employees are fully vaccinated.
Work in government offices, meanwhile, will be limited to 60 percent of their onsite capacity.
Face-to-face classes in basic and higher education, contact sports, funfairs/perya, and casinos are among the activities and establishments prohibited under Alert Level 3.
Meanwhile, in his new directive to areas under Alert Level 3 like Iloilo City, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered barangay officials to direct persons yet to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to stay at home.
“In the absence of a law, the President is called upon to act and because it is a national emergency, it is my position that we can restrain,” Duterte said in his “Talk to the People” television program last night.
“I am now giving orders to the barangay captains to look for those persons who are not vaccinated and just request them, or order them if you may, to stay put,” the President added.
“If he refuses, if he goes out of the house and goes around the community or wherever magpunta, he can be restrained. If he refuses, the barangay captain being a person of authority has the power to arrest,” Duterte further said.
The Chief Executive also asked barangay captains to mobilize civilians as regards the task of restricting the movement of unvaccinated people.
“And a person in authority, the barangay captain, can also mobilize civilians and give them the task, probably written, called upon to assist the persons of authority they become agents of persons of authority,” Duterte said./PN
